Neal Hall (Vancouver Sun) – An RCMP officer apologized in court Thursday to the families of two young men killed in a crash caused by the Mountie’s momentary loss of attention in 2007.
“To all of you, I say that I’m deeply sorry -my heart goes out to you. May you try to heal and … learn to cope with this awful horrible tragedy,” Const. Petina Kostiuk said at her sentencing hearing in Vancouver Provincial Court.
She read out her apology facing the public gallery, where relatives of the two young men sat, trying to contain their grief.
Kostiuk became choked up when she recalled her Ukrainian grandmother telling her, in broken English, that “a parent should never outlive their child.”
Kostiuk was driving a marked police car with its emergency lights and siren activated while going through a red light at the intersection of Kingsway and Royal Oak in Burnaby just before 2 a.m. on Oct 31, 2007.
She was responding to a 911 call about a suicidal pregnant woman.
Kostiuk’s police cruiser broadsided a Chevrolet Cavalier driven by Albert Haczewski, 27, who was killed along with his lifetime friend Koyo Walter Hara, 26.
The buddies, who met in elementary school, were on their way home from another friend’s house nearby, where they had played video games and watched a movie.
Haczewski, who worked as a Telus software technician, had married the previous year. He had met his wife Paula in Poland. They had bought a house in Delta with Haczewski’s mother.
Kostiuk was charged in 2008 with two counts of dangerous driving causing death. She pleaded guilty Monday to the lesser offence under the Motor Vehicle act of driving without due care and attention.
At a sentencing hearing Thursday, prosecutor Sandra Cunningham said a fine of up to $2,000 was appropriate. She did not ask for jail time.
She said Kostiuk made a tragic mistake when she failed to slow down to make sure no cars were approaching the intersection.
“She made a mistake that cost the lives of two young men,” Cunningham said.
Vancouver Provincial Court Judge Mike Hicks imposed a $1,500 fine, finding a jail sentence was not appropriate.
Nothing can replace the loss of the two families who are still suffering from the tragedy, he added.
The judge found Kostiuk made a heartfelt apology and took responsibility for her actions, which the judge called a momentary lack of attention as her police car approached the intersection at 76 km/h.
The judge said Kostiuk was a dedicated public servant who intended no harm to the two men killed.
“It doesn’t seem adequate -a $1,500 fine,” Haczewski’s wife Paula said outside of court Thursday.
The court was told she had lived in a beautiful house and the couple had their whole life ahead of them, but the tragedy forced her to move to a small apartment in east Vancouver, and she took out $10,000 in student loans to become a counsellor.
At the time, Kostiuk was responding to a 911 call about a suicidal pregnant woman who was despondent after the father of the unborn child said he would not live with her. The father made the 911 call.
Earlier in her shift that night, Kostiuk had responded to a 911 call at the same home and had taken the woman to Burnaby General Hospital, but she was released and returned home.
Defence lawyer David Butcher told the court that Kostiuk, 41, has two teenage daughters and now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. She joined the force in 2002 and has been unable to return to work since the accident, the lawyer said.
The RCMP changed its policy in 2008, requiring police cars to stop at intersections before proceeding through a red light during emergency calls. The RCMP also changed where sirens are mounted on police vehicles to make them more audible to other cars.
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